Gmail adding support for media queries

Google has recently announced on their developer’s blog that media queries are (finally) coming to Gmail.

CSS media queries are essentially what makes responsive websites (and emails) responsive. They allow developers to create specific rules for different screen sizes, making sure that content is more accessible, legible and is styled and displayed nicely for the device you’re currently on.

While many other email providers have supported media queries for years, there has always been one major player that hasn’t supported them… Gmail.

Here in Australia, Gmail is the most popular email service, meaning your emails had better be coded with it in mind. The absence of media queries has meant previously that all CSS has to be inline, limiting the ability for truly responsive emails.

What does this mean for email marketers? That the major obstacle to responsive email has just been removed. If you’re using an email marketing platform – these generally have worked around this limitation from Gmail, but it will likely open up both more consistent email rendering in the future, and potentially more modern templates , layouts and customisation.